Bouncy Balls: A Fun Way To Monitor Classroom Noise Level

Essentially, Bouncy Balls is a website that activates your microphone and detects noise level. The more noise in the room, the more the balls bounce. The quieter the room is, the more still the balls remain. Although this tool has a number of applications outside of classroom management, I thought it was a fun, engaging way to monitor noise levels. Ask students to try to keep the balls as still as possible during class, and maybe reward them by allowing them to sing and be noisy on their way out of class :)

Good question Mary! The microphone access essentially means allowing the program to hear you. Without the microphone access, the program wouldn’t be able to gauge classroom noise. Once you exit the website, the program no longer has access to your microphone – so it isn’t a privacy issue :)

Unfortunately, I don’t think you can download it. Maybe you could check with your admin and see if they could unlock the site? Or you could try loading it outside of school and then playing it when you get there.

I think this is a great idea in theory, however, having tried something similar before with a very loud special needs student, I know from experience that he would shout more just to see the balls bounce. That’s a lot more fun to see than the balls just sitting there!

Paul,
I love your Bouncy Balls website! However, I can not get it to work! The balls only bounce when I click on them with the mouse. I teach kindergarten and would love to use this with our sound unit and much, much more! The other posts said there was a microphone in the top left corner but I am not seeing that, all I see is an “N” with a circle (which I assume is your logo and it takes me to your other sites). I have checked my system settings and everything should be fine with my Mac. Please help! :o) Thanks you so much!
Amanda

Hello! My coworker and I have been trying to get this to work – this is genius by the way – as we teach first grade. I have an external microphone, followed all of the steps to set it up and tested it and it works. I have also checked my computer’s settings and had the tech guy in to check and he couldn’t figure it out. I have also followed the other posts to try and troubleshoot and opened the website in Firefox as you suggested. It is still not working. I see a microphone in the upper right hand corner but when I click on it, it doesn’t do anything. Any ideas are appreciated! Thanks so much!

Hi Dana. All I can recommend is that you make sure of a few things. First, make sure you’re using the latest version of Google Chrome or Firefox, and update it if it’s out of date. Second, after you click the microphone in the upper right, you should see a menu come down from the top of the browser. Here you need to allow permission before the microphone can be accessed. If you don’t see this menu appear, try restarting your computer, as that usually helps. Finally, if you do see the menu and do allow access, you need to check you’ve selected the right microphone. In Chrome, click the white camera icon that appears in the white address bar, and select the appropriate microphone. In Firefox, the icon is green and on the left side of the address bar.

Hi there,
I have used this in the classroom, my behaviour students have difficulty. If the balls could stop moving when they are loud and move when they are quiet. It could be a challenge to see how quiet they can make it. Just a thought or it could be a reward timer, when there is no sound the stopwatch could go up. This could equal how much reward time they get.
Thanks,
Scott

I just updated to Firefox 30.0. I no longer have the microphone in the upper right hand corner. There doesn’t seem to be a way to set up input of sound. Everything was fine in the older version of Firefox. Any suggestions? Thanks.

Hi Sylvia – firstly, I’d recommend using Google Chrome. When you click the microphone icon, if the line doesn’t go away, the microphone hasn’t been activated. You could try restarting your computer as there may be a problem with the mic, and restarting sometimes helps kick it back into life!

My Logitech microphone works on my computer but it will not work with Bouncy Balls. I have tried with Internet Explorer and Chrome. I do not see a button on the upper left corner to enable the microphone. Can you help? I would love this for my class.